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In the South I would think it is pretty common. I have some Indian blood on different sides of my family. Much of my family were English who started in Virginia/Maryland/Carolinas and moved west overtime before settling in Texas.
It is my own personal theory that if you have ancestry like this, the further east your family stayed, the more well of your family was. This is why Virginia and South Carolina have better reputations than Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. I think the more well off people tended to marry their own English people while many settlers married different Europeans (Irish, Scots Irish, maybe Germans) and maybe even some Indians
I'm not "anxious" for it, but I think it would be really cool if some of my ancestors were Native Americans, and to be related to a legendary one would be even better.
Ok, why does everyone think it's cool to have Native American ancestors? Why not some other kind of ancestor? I dunno, maybe a King or President or a Scotch-Irish fighter or horse thieves? How about a Japanese Princess? A famous singer? A french man who wrote poetry? A silversmith in Boston? A colonist who fought to bring our country to fruition? Why only Native Americans, some of whom were violent and brutal? I'm really curious.
You're lucky then, as that is not very typical in my experience.
My dad's is even worse - at one company he gets 19% Western Europe (German/French), at another, 65%, and at another 0%. His tree should be about 30% German.
Well, our family genealogy is very well documented back to colonial times and yeah...we're basically from the British Isles. That was no surprise.
The only surprise was the chunk of Finnish ancestry. I got a kick out of that.
In the South I would think it is pretty common. I have some Indian blood on different sides of my family. Much of my family were English who started in Virginia/Maryland/Carolinas and moved west overtime before settling in Texas.
It is my own personal theory that if you have ancestry like this, the further east your family stayed, the more well of your family was. This is why Virginia and South Carolina have better reputations than Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. I think the more well off people tended to marry their own English people while many settlers married different Europeans (Irish, Scots Irish, maybe Germans) and maybe even some Indians
Have you actually tested your DNA? Because most Americans who claim NA ancestry don't actually have it at all. I know that the stories of it being true pass down and no one is intentional lying, but usually it simply isn't true and someone at some point, for whatever reason, lied or was misled.
If you think about it, there was so much friction between NAs and settlers/later Americans, and SO many natives died off (mostly from disease actually), it doesn't really make much sense for so many Americans to allegedly have NA ancestry.
Ok, why does everyone think it's cool to have Native American ancestors? Why not some other kind of ancestor? I dunno, maybe a King or President or a Scotch-Irish fighter or horse thieves? How about a Japanese Princess? A famous singer? A french man who wrote poetry? A silversmith in Boston? A colonist who fought to bring our country to fruition? Why only Native Americans, some of whom were violent and brutal? I'm really curious.
Maybe it helps ease the guilt of us taking their land on some deep subconscious level. Or maybe then we have "warrior" blood in us that helps us feel stronger.
Well, our family genealogy is very well documented back to colonial times and yeah...we're basically from the British Isles. That was no surprise.
The only surprise was the chunk of Finnish ancestry. I got a kick out of that.
My tree is well documented back to colonial time as well, but our colonials were a combination of mostly British and German, and some Dutch and French Huguenots.
I think it's the exotic, romantic nature of the idea. In our current era, we don't see the
reality of Native American life, we know what we heard in stories and read in books and saw on tv and in the movies.
Here in New England, we used to hear about how smart and skillful the Indians were. Some of us visited the place where the Mayflower passengers stole corn from them (the Indians were smart enough to bury the corn for the winter), and we heard stories of how the Indians taught the early settlers how to plant the "three sisters" (squash, corn, and beans) using a fish head for fertilizer.
I remember walking through the woods and being told how the Indians knew how to walk without making any footprints. If we dug in the ground, we used to find arrowheads of different kinds, handmade by Indians. They knew which herbs to use to heal themselves of ailments.
We learned about the first Thanksgiving, shared by the Pilgrims and the Indians. I know I was in awe of them. The Massachusetts state flag shows a Native American who represents peace. That's what we were taught--who wouldn't want one of them as an ancestor!
Maybe it helps ease the guilt of us taking their land on some deep subconscious level. Or maybe then we have "warrior" blood in us that helps us feel stronger.
LOL I didn't steal anyone's sack lunch...or their land. No guilt here.
And for that "warrior blood," I guess Viking blood is good enough for me!
My tree is well documented back to colonial time as well, but our colonials were a combination of mostly British and German, and some Dutch and French Huguenots.
Hey, I have a French Huguenot "strand" as well - Nicholas Martiau from the Yorktown, VA area.
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